In "American Dreamz," a comedy about a faltering American president, a wildly popular TV talent show and the Svengalis behind them both, the jokes don't just fizzle into insignificance; they flop about with gaudy ineffectualness, gasping for air like newly landed trout. Unlike fish, alas, gags about nitwit commanders in chief, oily television hosts and rabidly ambitious young performers with stars in their eyes and sometimes their beds can't be tossed back in the water; only a blunt instrument, like a hammer, will do. Consider this a hammer, humanely but firmly applied.

Written and directed by Paul Weitz, whose earlier films include the boomer-revenge fantasy "In Good Company" and, with his brother, Chris Weitz, the sleekly entertaining adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel "About a Boy," "American Dreamz" is a seriously unfunny comedy about a seriously juicy subject, namely that intersection where politics meets entertainment. This isn't new, of course; Aristophanes bummed around that juncture, as did Elia Kazan. But what gives the film its gleam of topicality, its suggestion of relevance, is that it directly sends up both the Bush presidency and "American Idol," those twin pillars of contemporary homespun populism. The problem being that, as Jon Stewart, among many others, habitually reminds us, both surrendered to self-parody some time ago.

The film's strongest hand is Martin Tweed, or Tweedy, a television host cut along more or less the same sharp lines as the "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell and nicely played by Hugh Grant. In recent years, Mr. Grant has ditched his crinkly ingratiation to become the screen's reigning cad, an update on the jaundiced, self-loathing types once played by George Sanders. As the aggrieved host of the country's most popular show, "American Dreamz," Mr. Grant pulls out his shirttails, gels his hair into meringue peaks and roughs up his plummy accent, tempering his dissipated mien with some old-fashioned showbiz vulgarity. Even when he compares one yodeling contestant to the Ebola virus, he wields the gavel with a Beverly Hills smile.

Because Mr. Weitz has written a collection of profiles rather than a screenplay, "American Dreamz" has a baggy, episodic structure. Characters enter, sing a song or deliver a snatch of dialogue and exit; enter the next character, then the next. Those who stay around the longest, vying both for attention and purpose, are President Staton (Dennis Quaid), a Pinocchio with his own puppeteer (Willem Dafoe in a Dick Cheney tonsure as his chief of staff), and the Midwestern girl next door, Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore). A would-be Kelly Clarkson, Sally yearns for fame and all its dysfunctions, while the president suddenly just wants to read the newspapers, an undertaking so uncharacteristic that the chief of staff asks, "What's with all the papers -- new puppy?"

The liverish-looking Mr. Dafoe gives this line a creepy edge, but it isn't the kind of funny that sticks, at least if you're over the age of 10. It's the sort of toothless gag that a fading Bob Hope used to toss off at the Oscars (take my president, please!) but is painfully out of sync with Mr. Weitz's larger ambitions. Like President Staton, who appears on "American Dreamz" to pump his sagging ratings, the filmmaker clearly wants to say something, anything. And, so, in addition to a Bush and Britney clone, he gives us Omer (Sam Golzari), an aspiring suicide bomber straight from the Middle East who, on landing in Southern California, seems willing to trade his dream of a glorious afterlife for a shot at network paradise.

Omer sounds like a bad idea and is, despite the winning efforts of Mr. Golzari. Beginning with "American Pie," Mr. Weitz's films have always benefited from strong ensembles, and the same holds true here. Along with its fine leads, "American Dreamz" features some top-notch supporting players, including John Cho and Judy Greer as Tweedy's sycophantic retainers, all of whom make the film more watchable than its screenplay and junky visuals deserve. The young actor Tony Yalda, who plays Omer's nouveau riche American cousin, Iqbal, also rates mention, largely because he invests his character, a Barbra Streisand-indebted diva without the requisite pipes, with feeling and not just fun. In his face, you see the dream of fame at its purest and most corrupting.

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And there you have it, Mr. Weitz's big idea: transfixed by money and glitz, lulled by a promise of celebrity so great it defuses even a suicide bomber, we have fallen into a stupor while the puppet-masters have seized the White House. Dude! I hear you, really I do. But where's the beef and, as important, where are the jokes, the heart and the understanding that every age creates its own variation on the American dream? No matter how orchestrated, like President Bush at his most aw-shucks sincere, "American Idol" represents the triumph of populism over elitism, specifically our triumph. We, the ultimate insiders, cling to the fiction that we are outsiders, struggling for a place in the sun we already have. We are such stuff as dreamz are made on.

Written and directed by Paul Weitz; director of photography, Robert Elswit; edited by Myron Kerstein; music by Stephen Trask; production designer, William Arnold; produced by Mr. Weitz, Rodney Liber and Andrew Miano; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 107 minutes.

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A version of this review appears in print on April 21, 2006, on Page E00010 of the National edition with the headline: FILM REVIEW; An 'American Idol' Clone With a Presidential Aura. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe